The Golem's Quandary
by enRAGEd
Summary: "I pity whichever poor sod might try to fight that Golem," he said. But then, there are ways to get around a Golem other than fighting it, isn't that right Simon? One-shot.


**Castlevania: The Golem's Quandary**

To be a fiend in the service of Count Vlad Tepes Dracula was to be one of countless hundreds. For those that dwelt in the corrupt places of the world, the resurgence of the vampire lord was a time of celebration. It marked the moment when the time to be hunted was done, and the time to hunt had once again come. Those that had fled in fear of persecution and destruction, turned to face their attackers with a renewed vigour, safe in the knowledge that they held the patronage of the mightiest evil in existence.

Dracula's resurrection was a sign to all who trod the unholy path that their time to dominate had returned.

Those that already possessed immortality, and had been slain by demon hunters past, were roused from their slumbers to fight alongside the dark one as equals. Mortals with blighted souls and unpalatable appetites sought his favour, hoping to be made part of his army, such that they might achieve riches, power, or eternal life. Some, however, were restored with only obligation in mind.

It so happened that a pair of riders, moving east from the dread spire Castlevania, came to a specific roadside by a specific bridge one evening, reigning in their horses sharply as they arrived. The male and female wore chain mail and carried bulky weapons wrapped in leather strapped to their bodies. What bare flesh they showed had been tainted by an evil touch, the handprints of their master - the force known as Death itself, given solid form in the mortal realm - burned forever into their skulls. Their eyes were midnight black from corner to corner, reflecting the light from the full, silver moon overhead, as they scanned their surroundings.

"Is this the place?" the man asked, searching the area for any sign of their objective.

"It would appear so," his companion replied, folding a scrap of material painted with a map of the surroundings - that certainly did not look like parchment - into the pocket of her tunic.

"So where is it?"

After a quick search, the woman dismounted from her steed, leaving the decaying horse to stare vacantly at a tree, having no more desire to graze now that it was dead. She approached an immense boulder at the side of the road and clambered atop it, an easy feat for someone with inhuman strength, speed and reflexes. Then, reaching into her travel cloak, she removed a wineskin from a strap around her neck and uncorked it, pouring the contents over the top of the rock.

Blood - steaming, bubbling blood, smelling faintly of sulphur - splashed over the stone, staining its surface, and then she leapt down to the ground, rolling in the muck of the ditch beside the path. Her partner watched in bewilderment for a few moments, and then the earth beneath his horse's hoofs began to tremble. The animal, no longer startled by anything, simply continued to gaze in the same direction, unfazed by the rumbling noise, or the growing quaking.

Even as the female pulled herself back into the saddle, the boulder before them began to move, uncurling, unfolding, like an immense animal that had pulled its limbs in close to sleep. A huge head protruded, two enormous arms reaching out from a thick, craggy torso, before it rose on a pair of stout, rocky legs, rising before them until it stood at twice, perhaps three times, their height. The Golem had awoken.

"Large feller, ain't he?" the male muttered, before his comrade silenced him with a stern look.

The beast glared down at them with glowing red eyes, lit by some internal fire. Every movement it made - even the slightest motion - was accompanied by the sound of stone grinding against stone. It was colossal and threatening - which was most likely the intention - and she had no wish to anger it.

"Your master, the Reaper, commands that you watch over this bridge, as has been your obligation for these past several centuries!" she called up to it.

When it spoke, it was slow and steady, like the erosion of ages, but always with that jarring, grinding noise. In the recesses of its mouth, the light of a fire could be seen, as though roiling magma burned at its heart.

"**I am well aware of my obligation,**" it informed her, matter-of-factly, before turning and walking towards the wide stone bridge that had been erected over the impassable rapids there.

It was one of the few direct paths that existed between Castlevania and the outside world, one of the few ways that would-be demon hunters might gain access to the dark lord. The Golem's duty was to crush these individuals into a gory paste should they attempt to pass, lest they disturb the master's inscrutable schemes. With their own duty now done, the riders turned back in the direction they had come, intent on claiming the reward they had been promised for their service.

"Centuries spent guarding a bridge," the man mused, shaking his head, "what a waste. He'd be more useful in a siege."

"A siege against what?" his companion asked, "there are no lands that the Count wishes to conquer, no fortress more worthy of him, or useful to him, than Castlevania. He best serves his purpose as a guardian here."

"I wouldn't want to be stone," he commented, with a shudder, "I love my flesh too much."

"And the flesh of others, I shouldn't wonder. But rest assured that you may have all that you can eat, and otherwise enjoy, when we return."

"What was in that flask, anyway?"

"Blood," she told him flatly, "from a river."

"What kind of river runs with blood instead of water?"

She was silent this time, shooting him a pointed glance that informed him she too had wondered and thought it better not to speculate. After all, she had heard of only one place where a river might flow with boiling blood, and she had been quite eager never to go there.

"I pity whichever poor sod might try to fight that Golem," he said, changing the subject.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The Golem stood, unmoving, at the far end of the great stone bridge. It waited, with the patience of mountains, for the next platoon of hapless church knights - or rabble of peasant militia - to happen by. Around its feet lay what remained of countless armoured men and women, their horses, and their servants, all turned to pulp by its immense fists. Those that challenged its might were decimated, utterly.

It did not kill them out of spite, nor malice, but simply through duty. It had been charged with the protection of the bridge, and none disloyal to the Count would pass.

Parties of skeletal warriors or cadaverous bandits had happened by from time to time, clearing the mangled corpses from the path. Usually, they pitched what parts were inedible into the raging torrent below, but occasionally an artisan with an eye for the macabre would be among them, and would instead array the bodies in grotesque displays. Severed heads had been impaled on spears; banners fashioned from flayed skin bore the dark lord's sigil; an intact knight - stripped nude - had been nailed upside-down to a wooden cross. The grisly decorations lined the opposite bank, warnings for other potential challengers.

As it waited, immobile, unconcerned by the many discomforts mortal sentries endured, it pondered. It had been pondering for many, many years, in between bouts of violent slaughter, its mind of animated rock considering, analysing, reconsidering and wondering. Every thought yawned on into days, every conclusion the culmination of a century's unhurried musing.

It was all that a Golem could do with its bountiful time upon the corporeal plain, after all. Beings of living stone did not eat; they did not drink; they did not sleep, nor did they dream. Indeed, a creature that was little more than a boulder given sentience could do very little, other than use that sentience in the pursuit of understanding. It had contemplated much, but its only true realisation was that it knew so very little for certain.

The only fact of which it had absolute conviction was this: to have a duty, and a purpose, was good.

And so it stood, awaiting the time when it would again be challenged, or until the magic that had revived it waned, and it reverted once more to inanimate stone.

One evening, as daylight faded into darkness, many years since the Count's resurrection and its own awakening, the Golem felt the presence of another on the road it guarded. Turning the smouldering holes it used for eyes towards the trail, it saw a horse with a lone rider, a male wearing leather armour with an unkempt mane of flame-red hair. Rather than turn and flee at the sight of the huge sentinel standing before him, the human approached at a trot. Even his steed showed no sign of panic as it came nearer.

"Ho there, giant!" he called, "hail and well met."

The Golem did not answer immediately; it took it several moments to consider its response.

"**What manner of man are you, who walks so freely in the land of monsters?**"

"I am something of a monster myself, friend," the newcomer said, reigning in his mount mere yards away, "Claude is my name. I am a highwayman by trade."

Its gaze took in his stature - broad, with strong limbs - and his equipment - daggers, hand axes, a finely-crafted whip - highwaymen's tools all. He was rugged and dirt-streaked, the very picture of a man who worked the roads. Several more moments passed, as it mused upon the words that had been spoken, before it could produce an answer.

"**I have heard of no Claude in my time here.**"

"True enough," the man answered, not about to dispute his lack of reputation, "there is no profit to be made in infamy, if it scares travellers from the roads. These days, however, there is no profit to be made at all. Your master's return drives my usual prospects from the region. And so I have come to offer my services to him. Surely he could use able-bodied warriors such as myself in his conquest?"

"**It is as you say,**" the great titan rumbled, "**he seeks dark souls to join his eternal army.**"

"Dark souls, is it? Only the devil himself might comment on mine," Claude replied, before continuing in the affable manner the guardian was quickly growing accustomed to, "but I have a weakness for wine and women, and gold and power both are good tools to acquire them. If I cannot steal the gold, then your immortal Count might grant me the power."

"**You may beg an audience with him, then,**" the Golem agreed, nodding its gigantic head and moving to the side, pounding the earth with its huge feet, "**but beware. Those that displease his lordship must stand before Death himself. Even the Reaper of Wayward Souls has a master in the dark lord.**"

"I will," the man said, bringing his steed around and guiding it past the sentinel with a grateful nod, "thank you, giant, for your kind assistance."

It watched him pass as his mount bore him along the road towards the distant castle at a gentle walk. He seemed in no great hurry to reach his destination, and if there was one thing that the Golem could certainly approve, it was patience. Staring after him, it mused on the man's stoic nature, on his profession, on the armaments he had carried, as was its nature. Had its brow been capable of furrowing, it would have done so at the recollection of the whip the rider wore. It remembered conversations held by passing bands of soldiers about a whip, and the man who carried it; it remembered them speak of a grave threat to their master.

"**Wait!**" it bellowed, and the highwayman reigned in his horse, bringing it to a halt so that he could turn to look at the approaching juggernaut.

It lumbered closer, its footfall shaking the very ground upon which they stood. It leaned in, the firelight flickering in its eyes glowing across the red-haired man's features, which were pinched with confusion, and something approaching apprehension.

"**Should you see his lordship, pass to him a message from me,**" it said, its voice a deep grinding from the pit of its stomach, "**tell him that a demon hunter named Simon Belmont rides west to confront him, bearing the whip named Vampire Killer. I have heard many speak in whispers of this man. He, and his bloodline, are feared, even among the most stalwart of the Count's undead generals.**"

The bandit let out a breath that seemed almost to be relieved, releasing his hold upon the whip at his belt. "He will get your message, mighty one, and I will see you rewarded for it," he assured, before turning in his saddle and spurring his mount on towards the fortress, "I will hasten to Castlevania at once. Farewell."

With that, he rode on at full sprint, vanishing into the trees on the horizon some several minutes later. For its part, the Golem simply returned to its post, waiting as patiently as it had before.

Several weeks of continuous, ponderous reflection passed before it realised that it may have made a grievous error.

-x-x-x-x-x-


End file.
